


It brings on many changes.

by altilis



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate History, F/M, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2620793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn't fall off the train. World War 2 continues. The Pacific theater is unforgiving. While Steve tries to win the war, and Bucky tries to survive it, any way he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It brings on many changes.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to everyone who listened to me talk (bitch and moan) about this story from its start to its release. I'm glad to have it out there, finally.
> 
> Fanworks: [here](http://fandream.livejournal.com/35698.html), by [candream](candream.livejournal.com).

**JANUARY 1945**

The force of the blast slams into Bucky's chest and knocks him out the side of the train car—almost.

The wind howls in his ear and buffets against his side, threatening to blow him off the side of the mountain. He tries to haul himself up the ladder still clinging to the edge of the train car, but his fingers are numb with cold, getting colder, and his arms burn with exertion.

“Bucky!” Steve yells from the edge of the train car, hanging onto the remains of a handle where the metal of the car has peeled out. He stretches out a gloved hand. “Grab my hand!”

Bucky stares at Steve’s hand, a million miles away in this peril—yet he feels himself take a breath, he feels the muscles in his arm bunch up—

The wind roars louder than ever—

“Bucky!”

He swipes for Steve’s hand at the same time that his other hand slips from the edge of the car, and for a terrifying second he is disconnected from everything—

Steve catches him by the arm and jerks him into the car. He screams as a muscle pulls in his arm.

But he crashes into Steve and they tumble across the floor of the car until they hit the opposite wall. Bucky blinks, and he finds himself staring up at the ceiling, dazed by the pain in his shoulder and the fact he is still alive.

Steve appears in his field of vision, bending over him, taking Bucky' face in his gloved hands. “Bucky,” he whispers, “Bucky, talk to me, you okay? C’mon, Buck—”

His first lungful scratches at his raw throat, and he tries to swallow to get some spit in his throat, all while staring up, unfocused. “…Steve,” he croaks, “we’re never takin’ the train again. Never.”

Steve’s worry cracks into a smile, and he sits back. “Yeah,” he breathes a chuckle, “I hear ya.”

\--

When they were kids, playing baseball in the streets of Brooklyn, Big George struck a fly ball that zoomed high into the summer sun. “Steve!” Bucky had yelled from third base, “It’s comin’ to you!”

Steve had run to catch it, and in the process crunched into the side of a parked Cadillac, which barely rocked from the impact. The ball bounced off the hood and rolled down the street, and the other kids were yelling for Steve to go get it, but Steve was on the ground, clutching his arm. Bucky abandoned his base and went to see what was wrong, letting David Marsh steal two bases and score—but Bucky hadn’t cared.

They had got back to Steve’s place just as Mrs. Rogers was coming home from work in her white nurse uniform. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Rogers,” he had said with a tight voice, “I got Steve to play ball with the other kids, and I told him to get the pop-fly, and then he…”

Mrs. Rogers had tried to make Bucky feel better later, especially when they found out it was just a tiny fracture in Steve’s arm, but he felt down for the rest of the week, and sat playing Gin Rummy with Steve for three consecutive nights.

As Bucky sits next to Steve in the jeep, fighting to stay awake now that they’re heading back to base with cargo and prisoners in tow, fighting not to get too comfortable with Steve’s arm curled over the back of the seat behind him, making a good pillow if he leans just the right way—

As Bucky sits and breathes in the smell of oil, sweat, and pine, cringes when the road jostles his shoulder, he wonders if Steve will sit and play Gin Rummy with him, if his arm really is fucked up.

Peggy meets them at the base and stays with Bucky while Steve runs off to find a doctor. Bucky stands by the door of the Jeep, holding onto the frame with his good hand while he stretches his legs. He looks up to see Peggy watching him.

“You look tired,” she says.

“I almost died.”

“You and Captain Rogers almost die every time there is a mission underway.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s why I’m tired.”

“Well, the Allies will take Berlin within the next few months. We should be out of Europe.”

“And back in the States?” Bucky rolls his shoulder, experimenting, and winces.

“I don’t know.” Peggy frowns, and reaches out to touch his arm; he stops rather than let it be jostled any further. “You shouldn’t aggravate that, whatever it is.”

“It’s nothing.”

Steve starts to return with a doctor in tow, the bustle of soldiers parting ways in front of him. Peggy looks over his shoulder to see him, then looks back at Bucky. “Steve doesn’t fret for ‘nothing,’ you know.”

“Yeah.” Bucky slumps against the Jeep door, ready to be coddled. “Don’t I.”

 

The doctor has a thin frown on his face as he examines Bucky's left arm. He asks Bucky to rotate his shoulder and to flex his arm, and Bucky does, biting his lip so he doesn’t make a sound. He stares at a chart on the wall in four different language—Ask for a doctor who knows your language.

“Hm.” The doctor says, for the fourth time, as he writes something on his clipboard.

“Well, Doc?” Bucky asks in a hoarse voice. “Can I fight or not?”

The doctor glances up. “If I said no, would you stop?” For a moment, Bucky realizes that this man can’t be much older than him—in his thirties, maybe—but the white coat and the pen in his hand make all the difference.

Bucky would shrug—but that would hurt. “You could make me stop.”

“I could,” the doctor tilts his head, nodding, “but the Captain tells me you’re the best shot around, and he wouldn’t go to the front without you at his back.”

Bucky clears his throat and tries to ignore the flush on his face. “So—”

“So I’m going to tell you to avoid close combat and any rough-and-tumble stuff, for now. Stick to your rifle for a while.”

\--

The first night after Steve saves him from that German POW factory, after he’s got released from the doctors and he parrots enough good answers so they don’t notice the dead look in his eyes, he can’t sleep. Bucky tosses and turns on his cot and stares up at the dull canvas ceiling of the tent, until finally he huffs a breath, sits up, and decides to go for a walk.

The infantry base is quiet, as it should be in the middle of the night, but the moonlight bathes every tent and the muddy walkways between them with a beautiful white glow. On the edge of the mess he finds Dugan sitting on the roof of a jeep with a cigarette in hand.

“Can’t sleep?” Dugan asks as he comes close; his red-haired moustache shifts as he smiles. “Need some help?” he offers his pack of Lucky Strikes.

Bucky stares at the pack. He shouldn’t, for Steve’s sake—that had always stopped him before, back when Steve would get pneumonia every other winter, when Steve would wake up coughing at their childhood sleepovers, when Bucky could hear Steve struggling to draw breath into his weak lungs. Yet now none of that matters—Steve’s stronger than the rest of him, than anyone, and Bucky saw that more clearly than everyone when they were stumbling through the fiery wreckage of that German camp.

“Yeah, why not,” Bucky says as he takes the pack and knocks one stick out between his fingers. “You got a match?”

\--

He sticks to his rifle, just like the doctor told him, though he has a feeling the doctor told Steve, too, because Steve keeps him off the front line. Not that Bucky minds being a sniper—that’s what he is, that’s what he enjoys—but sometimes he watches through his scope as Steve and his commandos burst into a building and his gut clenches while he thinks, I should be there.

One day Steve comes back from a mission with blood on his sleeve from a nasty cut to his arm. Bucky walks around camp long enough to smoke one cigarette, gathering his thoughts, before he grinds it underfoot and strides into Steve’s tent before anyone can stop him.

Steve sits at a small table, shirtless, his arm bandaged up, and looks up from his map of Germany when Bucky enters. “Buck?”

“Steve.” Bucky strides over, stops right next to Steve so that the man has to angle his head back to look at him. “Whatever the next mission is—I’m going with you.”

“Buck—”

“My arm’s fine,” he interrupts, “bet I could punch you right now.”

Steve pauses at that, then his face cracks into a smile and he laughs. “Okay, Buck, take a seat. Wanted to talk to you about this mission, anyway.”

Bucky plants his ass down at the edge of the table, partially obscuring Switzerland with his left buttock, and folds his arms over his chest. He watches for Steve to say something, but Steve just gives him a knowing smile and leans forward on the table, resting his arm right next to Bucky's thigh.

“Zola said the main base was in the Alps, here, so I was thinking…”

\--

The night before their team is set to infiltrate the main science base in the Alps, Bucky has a dream about a plane. It’s a hulking behemoth of a machine, shaped like one thin black wing with engines that glow, hiss blue. He sees it barreling through the sky and over the ocean towards Brooklyn, towards where his parents used to live and their old butcher shop. He sees Fulton Street set alight from above, air so hot that it would burn his lungs out, Steve lying on the floor of a bombing bay, his mouth dry and hot with the taste of Zola’s solutions—

He wakes with a gasp, his neck cold with sweat and a thin cotton blanket tangled around his limbs. Flailing, Bucky managed to sit up, pushing the blanket away, and pauses, breathing hard in the darkness. The air smells like pine from the forest and the bacon from dinner, and the memory of dinner, of his friends and Allied moonshine and Steve, calms him.

A hand touches his shoulder. He jumps.

“Hey, woah,” Steve whispers as he kneels beside Bucky’s mat, squeezing his shoulder briefly. “It’s just me. You all right?”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, but nods, “Yeah, I’m—fine. I’m fine.” He takes a deep breath, then looks over, just barely seeing Steve’s worried face, “Just nervous for the mission tomorrow. Can’t believe it’s almost over.”

That’s enough to make Steve smile. Bucky watches him relax. “Well, get some sleep, okay? Need you to be sharp.”

“Yes, sir, Captain Rogers,” Bucky teases with as much humor as he can muster, and as he settles back onto his bedroll he sees Steve grin.

\--

They storm the base in the Alps. Bucky jumps onto a black plane with Steve (and tries not to remember how Steve gave Peggy a nice, you might die sort of kiss). They ground all of the planes bound for Allied cities, Steve fights the man with the red face until the man is a pile of ash. Bucky takes the plane down into a couple of vineyards, and it’s rough, but they’re both okay, enough to get out of the smoldering wreck and find an abandoned farm house to wait in.

“Hey, Steve, what happened with...you were fighting Schmidt and there was that light…” Bucky asks as the sun dips low over the rolling hills. He kicks at a spare scrap of metal and it jumps a few meters forward.

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know, Buck. He tried something and it—it didn’t work.”

They wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of propellers and rush outside to see a plane landing along a nearby dirt road alongside the wreckage trail. Howard waves at them from the cockpit.

“Looks like you boys crashed your ride.” Howard grins. Steve grins, and Bucky can’t help but smile, even if he’s tired and his shoulders ache and he’s pissed they didn’t find any wine around here.

They fly to Zurich where they meet up with the rest of the Reserve, and there’s enough back-patting and medal-promising to lighten everyone’s spirits. When the Commandos go out to try some local beer and wine, a few of them start to think wistfully of what they would do at home—sweep their old girlfriend off their feet, eat a fresh peach pie, go see a baseball game.

Halfway through his third beer, Bucky glances at Steve and thinks about seeing a Dodgers game together, thinks about driving west to see those national parks in Steve’s art books, thinks about having Steve all to himself instead of sharing him with the U.S. Army and General Eisenhower.

“Something on my face, Buck?” Steve asks with an easy smile, stretching an arm out to rest across the back of Bucky's chair. Bucky shakes his head and takes another large gulp of his beer. It doesn’t do much.

 

They walk into headquarters the next morning. Everyone rushes about packing things into boxes, and Colonel Phillips finds them in the flurry. “Boys,” he says, looking from Steve to Bucky and back, “we’re going to the Pacific.”

“The Pacific?” Steve echoes. “Sir, wait, what are our orders - ” Bucky follows, but only as far as getting to Peggy’s desk. She has one box of files neatly packed at the corner of her desk, and she’s taking a compact out of her desk drawer when she sees Bucky.

“I don’t think we’ve taken Berlin yet,” Bucky notes with a half-hearted smile; Peggy offers him the same half-courtesy.

“They’ve seen what Steve can do, given the chance,” Peggy says as she puts her compact in her purse. Bucky can guess who ‘they’ are: Roosevelt, or Churchill, or whoever else is moving the pawns in this war. “So they want to give him the chance in the Pacific. We just recovered Manila.”

“And from there, we’re…”

“Japan.” Peggy slings the purse over her shoulder and picks up the box of files. “Excuse me, Sergeant. You and the Captain had better pack quickly.”

\--

Steve assumes that Howard will be the one to fly them to the Pacific - he loves flying, he has the best planes, he doesn’t have anything better to do but volunteer himself for war (Steve can empathize).

Except when they step onto the tarmac towards the plane, Howard stands at the edge of the hangar and watches them with his hands his pockets. Pack slung over his shoulder, Steve walks over to Howard. “Not coming with us?”

Howard gives him an enigmatic half-smile. “Roosevelt wants me to look over a couple projects back home,” he says, “but I’ll be back on the front before you know it.”

“All right, but don’t get too comfortable.” Steve claps him on the shoulder.

Howard laughs. “I’ve got a house right next to the Pacific - I haven’t been comfortable for years.”

 

On the way to Tehran, Bucky sleeps, tucked along a hard bench in the storage bay with his jacket thrown over his arms and his cap pulled over his face. Steve catches a nap every hour or so, but doesn’t sleep, still too awake from the roar of the plane engines, but he does try to relax. While Bucky sleeps, Steve pulls out one of his notebooks, flips past notes, meetings, map sketches, names and dates, and on a blank page he starts to sketch.

At Tehran, the Allied outpost gives them a handful of telegrams and a bundle of old English maps of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Someone has taken a red pen to them and shaded in Japanese advancements up to now, with black splotches of ink to make attempts and failures by the Allies.

When they get to Manila, Steve steps off the plane, sets his bag down next to Bucky's in the barracks, and walks back out to meet with the Allied generals about what to do with the Empire of Japan. He spent their entire, many-legged trip from Rome, through Tehran, India, and Singapore reading up about the Pacific theatre, but the Navy didn’t tell him about their latest plans until their jeep had pulled away from the tarmac.

Steve has seen the map. He knows where Iwo Jima is. He’s unconvinced.

\--

**MARCH 1945**

Bucky hates Iwo Jima. The island’s too flat and it doesn’t have enough cover. He does what he can from artificial hills to protect his friends, to protect Steve, and in the end one of his judgment calls saves Steve but takes Dugan’s leg.

He’s doesn’t regret it, but he does give Dugan his last pack of cigarettes. “They sending you back home, now?” Bucky asks as he lights one for Dugan, using one of the three matches he has that aren’t rain-soaked.

“They better. I’m no use here.” Dugan takes a long drag of the cigarette and puffs out the smoke towards the low canvas ceiling of the medical tent. “It’ll be good to get out of this swamp.”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah. Don’t remember mosquitoes like this in Brooklyn.”

“Bet you didn’t have the kamikazes, either.” Dugan takes another drag. “You take care of the Captain, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know, all right?”

“Good.” Dugan holds the cigarette to his lips and inhales slowly, his gaze far away. “This is gonna be a long one.”

\--

Bucky watches as Steve lets a couple of young men raise a flag over Suribachi. They advanced north. They seal caves. They bomb whatever’s left. At night, they almost relax, until right after dinner the enemy emerges from the dark. Steve takes out eight with his shield and Bucky shoots five. When the night is quiet and Bucky can finally breathe, he’s too agitated to sleep, so he lies next to Steve under a damp canvas tent with his pistol clutched to his chest.

 

They have three days rest on an aircraft carrier. It isn’t until the second night that Steve stops hearing gun shots in his sleep. Once, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he sees Bucky sitting against the iron wall of their quarters with a cigarette in his mouth, flicking his lighter on and off. The flame glows bright in the darkness.

“…Buck.” He whispers.

“Sorry, Steve.” The lighter goes dark.

“Can’t sleep?”

He hears a rustle of clothing; Bucky shrugs. “Afraid to.”

“Want some help?” Steve suggests, almost joking.

“…you really mean it, Steve?”

“It worked when we were kids, didn’t it?”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, but you were small. Pretty sure the couch was bigger, too.”

“We’ll make it work, c’mon.”

The lighter flickers on again. As Bucky pushes himself to his feet, Steve shifts over as much as he can on his cot. Bucky squeezes into the available space, and the lighter goes dark again as he turns onto his side and presses his back against Steve’s chest. Steve lets him move as he pleases.

He feels Bucky take a deep breath, muscles pulling on Bucky's side where Steve decides to awkwardly rest his hand. “…you’re fuckin’ warm, Steve.”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t be.” Bucky shifts, getting comfortable. “Just gonna sweat all over you, don’t mind me.”

Bucky's skin already feels sticky beneath his hand, but Steve just smiles to himself. “Just go to sleep, Buck. We can bitch about this in the morning.”

\--

Germany doesn’t surrender until May.

None of them care, though, because they’re pushing through the scarred landscape of Okinawa, battling malaria and trench foot and Japanese propaganda.

Steve doesn’t lose sight of the mission, but he’s losing men at a rate that makes him nearly sick. One night, he tells Bucky, just between them: “I kinda wish we were back in Germany.”

“Yeah,” Bucky mutters, barely a breath above the crickets and the mosquitoes, “me too.”

\--

**JUNE 1945**

A mortar explodes near their position behind the embankment, sending up dirt and thick grey smoke. The first thing Bucky does is squint through the smoke and yell over the ringing in his ears, “Steve? Steve!”

At first he hears nothing but the grunts and swears of other men—not Steve because Steve never swears—and the panic starts to swell in his gut. Bucky tightens his grip on his rifle, grits his teeth, and pushes himself out of the mud and to his feet while the smoke still lingers. He turns to head down the line and runs flat into a solid wall of a man with a red, white, and blue uniform and a white, five-pointed star stamped across his chest. Steve.

Bucky falls back from the force of running into him—or starts to, but Steve catches him by the arm and then pulls him down into a crouch behind the sandbags standing between them and the Japanese on the hill. “Buck,” Steve says and Bucky looks up to meet Steve’s eyes, full of concern beneath the giant white ‘A’ on his blue helmet. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky answers, but he sees a large splat of dirt on Steve’s left shoulder—across his entire left side—and his brow furrows, “Steve, are you—”

“I’m fine.” Steve offers him a gentle smile. “But I gotta find my shield, lost it somewhere in the blast.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Cover me instead.” Steve squeezes his arm before letting go. “I’m gonna take the hill from the side.”

Bucky wants to make a snarky remark about how of course Steve is going to do that, of course Steve is going to take it upon himself to storm a hill all by himself, of course he’s not going to let the thick heat of the Okinawan jungle stop him like it’s stopped so many other men in their battalion. Steve has to do these things, Bucky knows, because he’s Captain America, and he’s the best the U.S. Army has against an enemy that will never surrender. All Bucky can do is nod and say “Okay,” and watch Steve grin and run off to the end of the line of sandbags.

Bucky sets the rifle back against his shoulder and peers through the scope into the trees. He’ll shoot down anything and everything that even blinks at Steve.

\--

The afternoon sun beats down on Okinawa as the Commandos approach the cliffs, and the ocean breeze provides some relief from the stench of smoke, gunpowder, and death. A group of civilians huddles at the end of the grass. As Steve jogs towards them—and the rest of the Commandos trail after him—he shouts at them with his limited Japanese, and Morita tries to make up the difference.

And yet, they still watch each one of them jump straight over the cliff into the ocean below.

Back at camp, Steve doesn’t take any dinner and lies on his back staring up at the sky. When the others have gone to sleep, Bucky walks over and plops himself down next to Steve, but doesn’t say anything.

“…they found more people,” Steve says quietly after a few minutes, “down in some caves.”

“Suicide?”

“Yeah.” Steve shifts, tucks one arm behind his head. “They had a grenade, but…same thing. I just wonder if—”

“If what?”

“If there was something else, that maybe…”

“I’m not gonna let you lie there and guilt yourself, Steve,” Bucky snaps at him, but his voice is tired. “You’ve saved a lotta guys on the front, okay? And if some Japs wanna toss themselves off a cliff—”

“Buck—”

“No, listen to me, Steve, the whole time we’ve been here, we’ve been shot at by people who don’t care whether they live or die. We don’t know what they woulda done if you had gotten close enough. They coulda taken you over the cliff with them.” Bucky pulls his knees towards his chest, rests his arms on them. “If someone really wants to kill himself, you’re not gonna stop him, Steve. Just one of those things.”

“You know I don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, well, after this, I don’t see how you can’t.”

\--

After Okinawa, the survivors are packed onto a carrier headed to Manila for some celebration and rest. On the flight deck, they meet Howard again, who wears a different jacket and a fainter smile, but he still shakes Steve’s hand, and Bucky’s, and in a cramped ship cabin they share a bottle of Napa wine. Steve thinks it’s pretty good.

In Manila proper, General MacArthur invites them to dinner in one of the few government buildings that’s not burned out, and after they’ve paid their dues they go out drinking, or try. There’s less cheap whiskey than Europe, but the locals bring out their coconut moonshine and rice wine, and everyone manages to have a good time—but Bucky feels ragged, and cheated, because he knows how small Okinawa is compared to the rest of Japan.

At the third bar (or fourth?) he knocks back the rest of his rice wine and stumbles outside onto the sidewalk. Early May, the evening air is cool but sticky, clinging to his face and neck. He wanders forward, footsteps flat against the concrete, until he can sink down to the ground and sit on the edge of the sidewalk, between two large piles of debris swept aside from the road.

Bucky sits there, bracing his arms on his knees, and plays with a lighter in his hands. A cigarette hangs from his mouth, unlit, but the air is fresh and sweet off the ocean and he feels too tired to smoke.

“Hey.” He looks up to see Steve standing beside him, barely a crease in his dress uniform since he’d ironed it this afternoon. “Mind if I join you?”

Bucky shrugs. “Sure.” He looks at a distant street lamp far down the road while watching Steve sit down next to him out of the corner of his eye. When they’re on the same level, Bucky turns his head to look at Steve, and notices that his grey-blue eyes flicker down to the cigarette on his lips. Bucky takes it and tosses it into the middle of the street.

“You didn’t have to do that, Buck,” Steve says quietly, looking towards the street. “I don’t have asthma anymore.”

“I know.” Bucky passes his lighter from one hand to another. “But the war’s almost over, right? Shouldn’t need it anymore. All we got left is to…invade Japan. Fuck.”

Bucky scrubs a hand over his face and hangs his head, staring down at the dirty concrete, and the sinking emptiness in his chest is only soothed by Steve’s hand rubbing his back. Even if he does have Steve by his side, Bucky thinks, he’s already done this jungle-island invasion thing twice. He doesn’t know how many more he can do.

“We’ve already done this twice, Steve, this jungle-island conquering thing.” Bucky says, his voice thin and rough, his eyes burning (but he’ll be damned if he’ll cry here on the street). “Japan’s just like Okinawa, isn’t it? Jungles and suicidal villagers?”

“Buck…”

“That’s what they’re asking us to do, isn’t it? Did Eisenhower mention it to you in there? Because there’s nothing else we can do unless the Japanese decide they’re done with all this, like that’s going to happen…”

Steve squeezes his shoulder, firm but reassuring, enough that Bucky can feel some of the tension bleeding out of him. “We can do it, Buck. I know we can. We’ve done it so far.”

Bucky looks to the sky, then over to Steve, and offers a shaky little smile. “I know you can.”

“And I’m not doing it without you.” Steve reaches his arms across Bucky’s shoulders again and squeezes, almost too tight. “Come on, let’s walk back to base. Unless you want to grab more coconut whiskey?”

“Nah.” Bucky gets to his feet, leaning on Steve for support. It’s not like the whiskey affects him now, anyway.

 

\--

**JULY 1945**

After Okinawa, they tag along with a part of the fleet to Guam, a tiny little island in the middle of the Pacific that is--at least now--calm. When they step off the boat and Steve gets a look around the port, he thinks: this is how it should be.

Buck, on the other hand - when the ocean breeze hits them in the early afternoon, Steve sees Bucky grin (even with the weariness still in his eyes). In the evening after dinner he rushes to the open beach so fast Steve almost misses him leaving. When he catches up with Bucky, his friend stands barefoot in the sand facing the ocean, and even with the mines in the water and the barbed wire strung across the high-tide line, the image strikes Steve. He wishes he had his sketchbook.

“I like this,” Bucky says when Steve steps up to his side. “Not cold like Normandy. Got plenty of sunshine all year, probably.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Howard talked about that house he has in California. Right on the beach.” A breeze comes off the water, smelling of clean ocean salt without any hints of gunpowder or death. “Maybe after this is done, we should try to get one.”

Steve smiles. “Yeah, we should.”

\--

**AUGUST 6, 1945**

Island hopping, tactical meetings, days on a tropical beaches and days at sea on the endless Pacific. Bucky almost starts to sleep through the night again.

He’s eating a light dinner with Steve in Guam when the official press release comes down from Truman across the radio. Bucky hears ‘twenty-thousand tons of TNT’ and ‘a rain of ruin from the air’, but he also sees Steve’s face fall, his eyes widen in shock.

Barely a moment passes after the end of the radio transmission before Steve drops his fork, clattering, onto his plate, pushes his chair back and rushes out the door of the mess, heading straight for Reserve headquarters.

Bucky stares after Steve’s back, but stays in his seat.

\--

**AUGUST 8, 1945**

There are whispers that another one is set to fall in a few days time. Steve tries to convince them otherwise, he shouts, almost loses his temper, but they won’t budge. Orders from Washington, they say. The bombs are already here, they say.

Steve slams the phone back down onto the receiver and leans against the wall with a deep sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. The air is sticky and hot, no wind coming off the Pacific today, and everyone in the office looks haggard and sweaty, even Howard, who’s fixing a fan on some secretary’s desk.

“Howard,” Steve calls out, catching his attention before walking over to the desk. “Do you know anything about this A-bomb?”

“I should,” Howard says as he pops off a small propeller blade with his screwdriver, “I helped build it.”

Steve stares at him for a long moment. He’s not surprised, really - Howard’s got a brilliant head on his shoulders and the government would have used anybody they could on this - but the note of pride in Howard’s voice that strikes him cold.

“What?”

“We got some of the German intel on this thing years ago.” Howard continues, his attention still fixed on the fan and not Steve’s silent horror. “Roosevelt asked me if there was anything we could do with it, and I said, of course there’s something we can do, tapped an old buddy I knew up in Berkeley--”

“Is it going to be as bad as the last one?”

“Maybe. Ideally it should be better, we’re not getting good efficiency out of the uranium at all --”

“Howard, you’ve got to stop it.”

“Stop?” Howard blinks at him. “I’m not exactly carrying them around in my backpocket, Steve, they’re probably off in a bunker somewhere, or on an aircraft carrier--”

“Didn’t they tell you?”

“Do I look like the Secretary of Defense to you?”

“You just said you helped build it!”

“With twenty other guys in the bowels of New Mexico, Rogers!” Howard snapped back at him, dropping the fan and the screwdriver back onto the desk. “It’s the government’s baby, not mine; I’ve got about as much autonomy over it as you do over this island. Excuse me.” Howard brushed past Steve to walk out the door, side-stepping around Bucky as he entered.

Bucky watched Howard stalk off for a moment before looking back at Steve. “Something happen?”

Steve leans up against the desk where Howard was sitting (he pretends not to notice how the secretary stares at him). “They’re going to drop another bomb.”

“And?”

“And? And we can’t let them do that, Buck.”

Bucky shrugs. Steve stares at him for a moment before storming outside, towards the beach, to get some fresh air.

\-- 

**AUGUST 9, 1945**

Early in the morning on the ninth of August, Steve wakes up, and he nudges Bucky awake, too. “Buck, come on, we’re going to North Field.”

“You gotta date or something?” Bucky groans, voice thick with sleep, as he pulls on his boots and his guns.

“Yeah,” Steve fits his shield to his arm, “something like that.”

North Field is a fifty mile skip across the ocean, and they land across the air strip. The crew on the ground wave him, recognizing his shield, and he waves back, but takes note of the B-29 under maintenance at the far end of the strip. He asks one of the crewman if he can take a look.

“I’ll have to check, sorry, Cap,” the boy says sheepishly, and scurries off to one of the bunkers.

As Steve watches him run off, Bucky touches his elbow and leans in to whisper. “I think I know where they’re keeping it, c’mon.”

He lets Bucky lead the way as they run in and out of the shadows. They come to a long, grey bunker, and Bucky shoulders open the door before rushing inside. Steve rushes in after him, finds a couple of crates and boxes of bullets and other munitions, but nothing new, nothing he’s never seen before.

“I don’t think this is it,” he says, peering into some of the crates, “let’s check anot—” He turns and freezes.

Steve watches, eye wide and breath caught, as Bucky raises the pistol at him, feet firmly planted in front of the bunker door. “Steve,” he says, his voice gruff and wavering on the syllable. “Stop.”

“Buck…?” He takes a step forward. The click of the safety fills the room, bouncing off the concrete walls and straight into Steve’s heart. “Buck, what are you doing?”

“I’m letting them go,” Bucky says, his voice tighter. “That plane needs to take off.”

“Do you know how many people are gonna die—”

“Of course I do!” The pistol shakes in Bucky's hand as he takes a breath. “But it’s better them than you. If this is gonna end the war, by God, I’m gonna let it fall.”

Steve takes a deep breath. His eyes never leave Bucky's face. He shifts the shield on his arm, bringing it closer to his chest, and Bucky lurches on step closer. “Please, Steve,” Bucky's voice cracks, “don’t make me, I don’t want to—”

The shield drops from Steve’s hand and rings out as it hits the floor. Bucky flinches at the sound, but Steve sees him staring at it, brows creased with confusion. “…I’m not going to fight you, Buck,” Steve says in a soft voice, and he slumps to sit against a couple of crates. He takes off his helmet and drops it between his knees where it clatters on the concrete floor. “You can put that gun away.”

Bucky doesn’t, not until the whirring of propellers starts and fades from the tarmac outside and the clock ticks past take-off time. Steve bends over to press his knuckles against his forehead, closes his eyes and breathes slowly, all while ignoring the cold twist in his stomach and the taste of iron in his mouth from where he bites his cheek.

After a long silence, the door creaks, and Steve lifts his head to watch Bucky slide down against the door to the floor, the pistol loose in his hand now. “I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky whispers, staring distantly at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

Steve watches as Bucky shifts the pistol between his hands, and then it’s turning, the fat barrel sliding underneath the edge of Bucky's jaw, and Steve freezes. “Buck,” he says with barely a breath, “don’t.”

In the bright yellow lighting, Steve can see the glint of tears leaking from the corner of Bucky's eyes. “Steve—” His voice sounds strangled, caught. Bucky's hand still trembles.

“Don’t.” Steve says again, rising from the bed. He holds Bucky's gaze as he approaches, one slow, measured step at a time, until he can crouch down in front of Bucky and hold his hand out. “Give it over.”

The Adam’s apple bobbles on Bucky's throat as he swallows hard.

“Buck.”

Bucky stares at him, blinks desperately at the ceiling, but then his shoulders slump and his hand falls away from his throat. Steve’s hand darts out to catch him by the wrist, and his other hand slowly pulls the pistol from Bucky's limp grip. He slides it along the floor, out of the way, and then he looks back at Buck, who stares into his lap, tears still streaking his cheeks. “…I’m sorry.”

“I know, Buck—look at me,” Steve says quietly, reaching out to grip Bucky's shoulder (a little too tight). When Bucky looks up at him, really focuses on his face, he adds, “I know.” He understands what it’s like to teeter on the brink of losing your best friend when the weight of the whole world crashes over you, because it almost happened before, when Colonel Phillips wrote off those POWs, Bucky among them—and it almost happened again, right here, across a great atomic schism. The relief of saving his best friend almost soothes the hot burn of betrayal in his throat. He understands why Bucky had to make it happen (but understanding doesn’t necessarily yield forgiveness).

Steve shifts to his knees and pulls Bucky forward to his chest, embracing him tight around the shoulders, and Bucky presses his entire being against Steve. He hides his face in Steve’s shoulder and sobs, shaking, until he’s too exhausted to speak.

 

Steve flies them back to Guam. The sun just begins to rise when they get back to their quarters. Too tired to do anything else, Bucky flops onto his bed, boots and all, and sleeps. It’s easier than looking at Steve, sitting on his bed on the other side of the room leaning on his knees.

 

When he wakes up, Steve isn’t in the room and the sun hangs low in the sky. He washes his face, combs his hair, looks at himself in the bathroom mirror—then shakes his head, and goes looking for Steve. Bucky asks his squad where they last saw Steve. They all point him in the direction of the eastern beach. He finds Steve sitting where the beach starts to shift from grass to sand, his star-spangled shield half buried in the sand to his left. His knees are drawn up halfway to his chest, and his gaze focuses on the far horizon.

Bucky steps up to Steve’s right and takes a seat. “…hey.”

“You feelin’ better, Bucky?” Steve asks him, his voice soft. His gaze is still on the ocean, even as Bucky looks at him.

“I don’t know. Should I?” He chews on his bottom lip for a moment, then looks down at the sand and drags his fingers through it, feeling the warmth of the grains against his skin. “Look, Steve, I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have to be.” The words come out a little too quick, and Bucky stills, expecting anger or yelling or something to confirm the guilt stewing in his own soul. But Steve sighs, and Bucky wonders what else he did wrong. “I talked to our squad about what happened. They…they all seemed to know why you did it. They would have let it go, too.” Steve runs a hand through his hair slowly, moving out of the corner of Bucky’s eye. “But I was thinkin’, if I had saved all those people, but lost you…”

Bucky looks up to see Steve looking at him, a small smile on his lips and some sadness in his eyes. He shakes his head. “Don’t say it. I’m not worth that much.”

Steve reaches over to rest his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezes. “You are to me. Don’t forget that, whatever happens with Japan, okay?”

Bucky grips handful of sand at his side, bites his lip to quiet sounds of protest, and nods. “…okay.”

 

\--

**SEPTEMBER 2, 1945**

General MacArthur invites them onto the USS _Missouri_ to watch the Emperor sign the Instrument of Surrender. At first, Steve doesn’t want to go—he’s still livid, shocked, horrified by the dropping of the two bombs—but Peggy comes to his room with a stern look and a bottle of gin (“because I expect this will take a while,” she says.)

“You have to go,” Peggy assures him, setting down her small glass on the table between them. “At least for the photographs and the newspapers.”

“Peggy—”

“I know how much you hate those,” she says, really looking at him, and as he looks back at her, Steve realizes that Bucky isn’t the only one tired of this war. “But your country needs to see you there. You, more than anyone.” (What she doesn’t tell him is that the Soviets need to see him there, too, to show that he’s still alive and he’s still unequivocally American.)

Steve sighs, takes another glass of gin that doesn’t do anything. He looks at Peggy, who watches him. “…if you think it’ll help,” he says finally. Peggy smiles, and Steve finds himself smiling back.

“It will, I’m sure of it.” Peggy relaxes back in her seat now, more relaxed than Steve has ever seen her on the war front. He wonders how many other people get to see her relaxed like this. “And afterwards, you and Sergeant Barnes can go celebrate in some proper American way.”

Steve laughs (he hopes it doesn’t sound too hollow). “I think the only way we’ll be celebrating is by heading home. Pizza’s not the same outside of New York, you know? What about you? Heading back to London?”

“Initially, yes,” Peggy said with a nod. “I’ll check to make sure my mum and my family are okay, and then afterward…we’ll see.”

“Staying with the service?”

“Well, that’s it, really—with the War exemptions can be made and men have other things to worry about than who they’re taking orders from, but in peacetime…we’ll see whether they try to push me out again.”

Steve frowned. “Well, if you need a place to go,” he rubbed the back of his neck a little, “Brooklyn’s always open to you. And Howard, I know he’s getting jobs for a lot of my guys, so…”

“I’ll be fine, Steve.” Peggy smiled at him. “I know my options.”

\--

**SEPTEMBER 1945**

An aircraft carrier takes them to sunny San Diego, and even with the confetti and the crowds, Steve can only manage a gentle smile before he remembers Okinawa and North Field, and he looks to either side to make sure Bucky is still with him.

Bucky doesn’t smile at these events until Steve catches his eye, and then he gives a little quirk of his mouth that nobody else gets to see.

President Truman tries to put them on a separate train car to D.C. with all the pomp and circumstance of a traveling circus, but Steve—uniquely familiar with this mode of transportation thanks to his days selling bonds—refuses to go anywhere until they get a regular car, a regular train, and treatment no better than the other war heroes flooding into the country.

As the train winds through the deserts of Arizona on the route to Chicago, Steve finally begins to feel the quiet peace of victory soak into his lungs and sink into his bones.

Bucky lies across the seat in front of him, but Steve knows he’s not asleep--his breathing isn’t deep enough, and Bucky curls up when he sleeps, pulls his left arm close to his chest. Right now, he’s got his hands folded over his stomach. “Hey, Buck,” Steve murmurs as the hills roll by outside.

Bucky doesn’t move for a long moment, then slowly opens his eyes and looks at Steve. “Yeah?”

“...it’s over.” Steve’s voice is quiet, barely above the rattle of the train. “Can you believe that?”

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, then looks away. “Sometimes.” Steve watches him for a moment longer before turning back to the sketchbook in his lap.

\--

**NOVEMBER 1945**

They arrive in Brooklyn under a shroud of anonymity that Steve is grateful for. It works twofold for him: not only does he look like a normal man in a pressed shirt and slacks, but he’s taller than he was when he left, so no one can call him out for that one time he picked a fight, or that other time he stopped a guy from harassing his girl, or that final time he called out a man for disrespecting the troops.

Bucky and he decide to share an apartment together somewhere in their old neighborhood on Montague Street. For the first few days while they’re furnishing the place and Steve has to relearn where everything is, he marvels at how familiar the street lamps are, how comforting the rolling hum of car engines, how his heart aches when he smells fresh bread down the street.

But Buck—

One night Bucky pushes his dinner away and folds his arms on the table. Steve asks what’s wrong and Bucky shrugs, rests his head down on his arms, and takes a breath that shudders out of him. “Everything’s different, Steve,” he says, voice muffled, “all of it. Sometimes—” The muscles in Bucky's arms bunch up. “Sometimes I want to go back. How wrong is that?”

“Give it some time, Buck,” He gets up to go to their brand-new, bright red fridge, taking out a bottle of milk. “You want some hot chocolate?”

Bucky makes a noncommittal noise, but Steve starts to heat up the milk, anyway.

\--

Steve doesn’t speak ill of Howard, but he doesn’t accept his invitations, either. This latest one invites them to dinner at his fancy house in Manhattan. He calls Howard up and tells him directly, “Sorry, Howard. Not yet.”

“Still sore, Rogers? That’s all right,” Howard says from the other end of the line, voices in the background. “Next time.”

But Bucky arranges to go, dressed in a new suit, and before he leaves he asks Steve, “Do you want me to pick up anything tonight?”

Steve shakes his head and waves from the drafting table near the window. “Have a good time, Buck.”

\--

**FEBRUARY 1946**

He writes letters to Peggy while she’s still in London visiting family. She intends to move to New York, she tells him, so she can work with the intelligence network Howard is crafting there. Steve just looks forward to having one of his friends close by, again, whatever the reason.

He’s staying up late coloring an ad for Macy’s in Manhattan—less for the money right now and more for the relaxation—when Bucky returns from another one of Howard’s parties. Steve turns to peer through the door towards the hall, and watches Bucky enter, swagger in, and plop himself in the extra chair at the desk. His tie hangs limp and unknotted around his neck. His cheeks are flushed.

“Howard offered me a job. In Europe.”

Steve sets down his pencil. “...what?”

“Yeah. Something about Berlin. Soviets. Spying. I don’t know.” Bucky leans one elbow on the desk and props his head against his fist, looking at Steve, or through him; his gaze is a little unfocused. “...maybe I shouldn’t’ve told you.”

Steve frowns. “Why? You think I’m a communist?”

Bucky shrugs. “Not like I’d do anything if you were.”

\--

**MARCH 1946**

“I gotta go,” Bucky says, pulling up the collar of his peacoat against the wind. “Plane’s leaving for London…” he checks his watch, “soon.”

“Okay.” Steve clears his throat, looks up one side of the street and then down the other, then back to Buck. Another beat passes with the two of them looking at each other before Steve offers his hand. “Be careful.”

“I got through the war, didn’t I?” Bucky says as he takes Steve’s hand, and it isn’t clear who pulls first or pulls more, but they embrace, tight. Steve can smell the faint minty bite of Bucky's aftershave, can feel the scratch of the wool coat against his chin, and he’s loathe to pull back. But he withdraws before anyone can see how they linger.

Bucky is slow to let go of Steve’s hand. “...thanks,” he says, before he finally does.

\--

**APRIL 1948**

Steve lives alone in a flat and Peggy moves into a corner place two blocks over.

One night Steve stops by Peggy’s place for dinner and Howard is there. Neither of them look surprised at his entrance, Peggy least of all, though she looks at him, waiting, expecting him to leave like he always does.

He doesn’t. He nods once, “Howard,” and takes a seat at Peggy’s right, setting his sketchbook on the table in front of him. “What are you doing on this side of town?”

“Peggy and I were talking about the Soviets,” Howard says, leaning into his chair with one hand draped over the back. “The CIA can’t seem to keep up and I’m not going to help them with my tech without my oversight. We saw how badly it could go the first time.”

“Yeah.” Steve’s jaw tightens for a moment. It’s been almost three years since—that. “So what are you going to do, then?”

“I was thinking of starting my own group.”

“On your own?”

“Well, within the United States government, of course. You in, Rogers?”

Steve looks from Peggy to Howard with a grim smile on his face, and reaches for the glass of water next to his plate. “I’ll think about it.”

 

That night, he writes a letter to Bucky. Bucky’s letters, few and far between, have always come with different stamps and never tell where exactly he is, but he keeps telling Steve where to mail them: some strange address in London.

Steve chews at the end of the pen for a moment before writing:

_Buck—_

_Howard’s thinking about starting a new group outside of the CIA to deal with the Soviet Union. I still don’t know if I should trust him…_

He hesitates at first, but he keeps writing and writing until the clock in the living room chimes twelve times. Blinking down at the sheet of paper covered in words and worries and ink, Steve decides to close it; he signs his name, and then sits back to read over it.

Before he slides the letter into the stamped envelope, Steve picks up his pen again. _P.S. I’m thinking about asking Peggy to marry me._

He almost adds, ‘hope you don’t mind,’ but that sounds so strange. Why would Bucky mind? And Bucky knows Peggy; he wouldn’t object.

Steve still pauses for second thoughts before he seals the envelope.

\--

**JUNE 1948**

Steve proposes to Peggy and no one is surprised. Howard insists that the wedding is in Los Angeles. Peggy agrees because it’s the rational thing to do—great weather, great food, little humidity—and Steve agrees with Peggy, because he’s never done anything like this before and nothing about being the army helped.

They pick a cake, something light with berries. They choose a decoration scheme based on robin’s egg blue that doesn’t shout “star-spangled banner.” Peggy chooses a dress with some girl friends she has in Howard’s new group. Steve and Peggy stay up all night by the fireplace in February signing and addressing invitations. He stuffs an additional note in Bucky’s envelope— _could you be my best man?_ —and hopes he receives it in time.

He doesn’t get a response.

 

Steve wakes up the morning of his wedding. He lies awake and still, staring at the ceiling. It’s the hour before dawn; there’s the distant din of ocean waves crashing outside but nothing else in the little bungalow, and for a split second it reminds him of Iwo Jima, but he reminds himself: no, this is California, this is one of Howard’s guest houses, Peggy’s just across the property in another house of her own.

He gets up, gingerly steps across the cold tile floor into the guest house’s bathroom, and washes his face. After looking at himself in the mirror for a moment, Steve snorts and turns away; three years since the end of the war and nothing’s changed.

Moving into the kitchen, he turns on the overhead lamp and freezes.

Bucky sits at the kitchen counter with a cigarette in his hand, a pack of Lucky Strikes on the counter, and a saucer that’s turned into an ash tray. He wears a black suit that looks like he’s slept in it, no tie, the front of his shirt open down to his chest.

“Bucky.” Steve blinks, hand still on the light switch. The only thing that moves is the smoke curling up from Bucky’s cigarette. Another beat passes; Steve is vaguely aware his mouth is open. “…Bucky. What are you…how did you get in here?”

“That’s top secret information, Rogers.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Bucky removes his other hand from his pocket and drops a key on the counter. “I asked Howard when he picked me up from the airport. Nice beach, by the way.”

Steve smiles as he steps up to the counter, looking from the key to Bucky in the dim orange light. But it’s like looking into his past again: Bucky has changed about as much as he has: not one bit. “When did you get in?”

“A couple hours ago from New York.”

“You were in New York?”

“Layover. From Munich.”

“What were you doing in Munich?”

Bucky takes a drag from his cigarette. “Now that one I really can’t tell you, Steve. Sorry.” He extinguishes the cigarette in the saucer and gets up from the barstool. “But I’m not the one getting married today,” he says, moving around the counter to stand in front of Steve. “Tell me what I can do.”

Steve leans his hip against the counter, bracing his hand against the other. “Did you get my invitation? With the note?”

“Yeah—and, look, I’m sorry I didn’t write back,” Bucky says, looking away. “Things got busy. I can understand if you already chose another best man because—”

“I didn’t.”

Bucky blinks at him. “Really?”

Steve shrugs. “I asked you, and I’m still waiting on your answer.”

Bucky stares at him for another beat and then smiles. “You got a tux I can borrow?”

“We can find one,” Steve laughs.

 

The only thing about the actual wedding that Steve will remember later is how Peggy still moves like she did on the battlefield, despite the dress and the veil and the bouquet, and Bucky standing next to him, just out of sight, always watching Steve’s back.

More people show up to the wedding than Steve expects. He shakes hands with all of them: all of the politicians, all of the movie stars he met during the war, all of the Howling Commandos, every soldier that Peggy and he met during the war that managed to make it to Los Angeles. The food is delicious and the cake isn’t too sweet, and they even take a handful of glamorous photographs out in the sun while Howard watches from behind the camera with a drink in his hand.

Towards the end of the reception, one of the waiters tells Bucky he has a call; he excuses himself from the ballroom to take it, but when he doesn’t return after half an hour, Steve goes looking for him. He finds Bucky sitting in a little office at the back of the hotel, hunched over a desk with a phone wedged between his and his shoulder while he scribbles on a tiny notepad. Steve waits in the doorway for Bucky to finish the call, his shoulder leaned against the frame.

“--okay, got it, I’ll be there.” He sits up, drops the handset onto the switch, and then leans back into the seat with a sigh. After another beat, he looks over at Steve, and they don’t say anything for a long moment.

Steve clears his throat. “You gotta go?”

“...yeah.” There’s a little twitch at the corner of Bucky’s mouth, maybe an apologetic smile, but it’s gone, if it was there in the first place. “Duty calls.” He stands from his seat.

“How long will you be out?” Steve asks, watching Bucky move in the borrowed tux. 

“Until the Russians get out of Berlin?” Bucky shrugs and looks everywhere but Steve himself, even when he stops right in front of him, waiting for Steve to move from the doorway. “Can’t really say.”

“Well,” Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, squeezes, “you can always come back to Brooklyn. You know that, right? Stay with Peggy and I and--”

“I know.” Bucky looks at him this time, his smile tight. “I’ll remember.” He reaches up and pats Steve’s arm. “You have a good honeymoon. Stay out of the papers.” With that, he squeezes past Steve to start down the service hallway. Steve lets him go.

“Stay out of Moscow,” he calls to Bucky’s back. Bucky waves it off.

“I’ll try.”

\--

In the middle of an early spring in 1952, Steve receives a letter with no return address and a single, thin piece of faded yellow paper: _Have to go to Moscow. Sorry. Best wishes._

The letters stop.

\--

**FEBRUARY 1962**

President Kennedy flies to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna. Steve follows, not because they ask him, but because Peggy does; she wants to see the city after it’s been rebuilt, and the SHIELD office there requires a visit.

While she spends the day working, Steve takes a pencil and a sketchbook and heads out into the city. He sees fountains, statues, museums, young lovers on a park bench, the Danube cutting through the city. As the sun sets and the lights glow brighter and brighter against the night, Steve stands on a bridge and watches boats pass underneath, their waves rippling through the light on the water.

Someone bumps into him and his sketchbook drops to the ground. As he and the passer-by trade apologies and he brushes the dust off the leather cover, he looks up toward the end of the bridge and he thinks—he knows—he sees Buck.

Bucky crosses the street, checks a shop window, and then disappears around the corner.

Steve stares, blinks, and then darts through the crowds trying to follow. Bucky winds through both quiet alleys and bustling markets, never glancing back and never moving faster than a walk. Steve follows him into a quiet cul-de-sac of townhouses and watches him disappear into one at the far end.

A fountain gurgles quietly beside him as Steve stops in the middle of the road and stares up at the townhouse and a single lit window on the third floor. His breath crystallizes in little puffs against the winter air, and despite his coat and the walk, Steve feels chilled to the bone.

He takes a seat on a bench next to the fountain and opens his sketchbook. Taking a pencil from his coat pocket, he begins to roughly sketch the building, the birch tree out front, the shutters hanging ajar. As he sketches, he thinks about whether Bucky will see him or come meet him, and he reminds himself at Bucky is a sniper, of course he’s seen Steve sitting out here in the open, if he’s anything like he was before.

When he’s outlining the roof, he looks up again to check the brickwork and sees the window is dark. Steve swallows. If Bucky wants to meet him, Steve tells himself, then he’ll come out here and do that. The hope lingers.

The moon hangs over the house, so Steve sketches that, too, but for a second he thinks he sees a glint of starlight at the corner of Bucky’s window, bright, white, and fleeting.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanarts: It brings on many changes.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2625467) by [candream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candream/pseuds/candream)




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